Posts Tagged ‘The Golden Rule’
2024 Earth Day Message:
Cherish or Perish
“LAUDATO SI’, mi’ Signore” – “Praise be to you, my Lord”.
In the words of this beautiful canticle, Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us.
“Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with colored flowers and herbs”. . .
“This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her.”
~ Pope Francis – Climate encyclical message
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them humanity cannot survive.”
“Ultimately, the decision to save the environment must come from the human heart. . [from] a genuine sense of universal responsibility that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.”
~ Dalai Lama
“Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.”
“Compassion, in which all ethics must take root,
can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces
all living creatures, and does not limit itself to mankind.”
~ Albert Schweitzer
“In the present circumstances, no one can afford to assume
that someone else will solve their problems. Every individual has a responsibility to help guide our global family in the right direction. Good wishes are not sufficient; we must become actively engaged.”
~ Dalai Lama, “The Path to Tranquility: Daily Wisdom”
“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
“The choice is not between violence and nonviolence
but between nonviolence and nonexistence.”
~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Cherish or Perish.
Co-exist cooperatively, or
Co-expire catastrophically.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Introduction to 2024 Earth Day Message.
Dear Friends,
Greetings as on April 22nd we are about to commemorate Earth Day 2024!
On this Earth Day and every day may we honor all life on our precious planet.
At an apparently pivotal time for Earth life, we are now paradoxically confronted with Humanity’s self-inflicted threats to all life as we’ve known it, while concurrently (but unknowingly) we can compassionately co-create previously unimagined evolutionary advancements to peaceful and cooperative global societies existing beyond all current wars, fears, afflictions and sufferings.
To avert unprecedented earthly calamity, we must NOW actively realize that any more world war (using advanced weapons technologies) will end earth-life as we’ve known it. Yet paradoxically, Humankind can sustainably and peacefully survive and thrive, using advanced technologies to end all sentient beings’ sufferings with reciprocal respect and empathy.
Above all we must no longer abet or allow harm to others, or continue to unsustainably despoil life on our precious planet; but we must treat all sentient beings with the same dignity we wish for ourselves, and that they wish for themselves. (See https://sillysutras.com/go-for-the-gold-the-golden-rule-for-a-golden-age/ )
We must live lovingly and harmlessly as a compassionate global family, in harmony and synchrony with Nature and with all life on our precious planet.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Factual Background
When a reporter once asked Mahatma Gandhi, “What do you think of Western civilization?” Gandhi reportedly replied, “I think it would be a good idea”.
That story raises key insights into our allegedly ‘advanced’ societies.
We have degenerated into an Orwellian world dominated by purported “leaders” and trans-national organizations that are insanely committing mass suicide by ecocide and threatening global climate collapse and potential World War III holocaust which would end Earth life as we’ve known it.
Though there have been prior isolated instances of self-inflicted human societal collapses – like that at Easter Island – never before have we caused an imminent global climate collapse. Yet without planet Earth’s favorable ecology, humanity can not survive.
So we must seriously consider whether our species is ignorantly and unsustainably inflicting upon “Turtle Island” or “Earth Island” what we did to Easter Island. And how we can avert such a catastrophe.
Our present ecological insanity is purportedly justified by an illusionary and long disproved reductionist and materialistic worldview belief system which sees everything and everyone as physically separate and mortal, while forgetting our immortal and Eternal common Cosmic consciousness as Divine LOVE.
We have forgotten what indigenous peoples have always known and remembered – our inextricably interrelated spiritual connectedness to Mother Earth and to everything/everyone/everywhere; that what we think we do to apparent ‘others’ we do to ourselves.
“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together … all things connect.”
~ Chief Seattle
Hence to avert apparently calamitous ecological breakdown we must NOW breakthrough to a compassionate higher heart-centered worldview; from where we can solve and resolve our problems, with awareness beyond that which created them.
Ron’s 2024 Earth Day comments.
Dear Friends,
We live in an age of extreme mental malaise; the Hindus call it Kali-Yuga.
Many humans have egotistically forgotten their true Divine Self-identity, and thereby have failed to follw the perennial wisdom Golden Rule of ethics shared by all enduring religious, spiritual, indigenous, and ethical traditions that we do no harm; but that with reciprocal empathy we treat all beings with the same dignity we wish for ourselves, and that they wish for themselves.
Accordingly, our precious planet has become polluted by human fear, ignorance and greed, which imminently threatens all Earth life with global war or climate catastrophe.
Yet paradoxically because of elevated cosmic energies, and advanced Earth technologies, these are also times of unprecedented opportunity for human advancement to peaceful and cooperative societies beyond present afflictions and sufferings.
Optimistic observations.
I optimistically foresee our transcendence of current catastrophic threats.
Throughout human history, life’s most painful and difficult experiences have often proved the greatest evolutionary opportunities and blessings, because they’ve most motivated surrender and transcendence of our illusionary ego-mind separation from Nature and each other, which is the root cause of ignorantly insane beliefs and behaviors which threaten Earth-life.
Moreover, in the darkest and most threatening eras of rampant world materialism and decadence, there invariably have appeared synchronistic circumstances to guide Human societies to, “a genuine sense of universal responsibility that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.”
Furthermore, I agree with many mystics who suggest that everything that happens to us, societally or individually – until we transcend ego’s “optical illusion” of separateness – is in our best interest, because it affords opportunity and incentive to evolve.
Thus, current turbulence and political polarization (beyond evoking anger, fear or despondency) is causing great collective awakening opportunities, and motivating humanity to at long-last recognize and resolve its current critical problems from elevated intuitive Heart levels of consciousness, beyond those fearful lower psychological states which created and perpetuated them.
Such an awakened “critical mass” collective perspective will enable us to transcend current survival insanity. And to spiritually evolve, until ultimately we realize that – beyond our illusory separation from all that we perceive – we are ONE Universal spirit eternally encompassing all life, and everything everywhere as infinite LOVE.
This 2024 Earth Day message is deeply dedicated to inspiring such a collective awakening.
Concluding Invocation.
Thus, as a united global family, may we lovingly restore, preserve and protect our “pale blue dot planet”, “the only home we’ve ever known”.
Ever mindful of our Oneness with all Life on and beyond our precious planet, may we behave and believe with loving-kindness and compassion to always embrace all living creatures and the whole of Nature in its beauty.
Rather than worry or be afraid, may we ever remember that
“The only thing we have to fear is…fear itself.”
~ Franklin D. Roosevelt, first inaugural address
“For God sends hope in the darkest moments.
The heaviest rain comes from the darkest clouds.”
~ Rumi
“When I despair, I remember that all through history
the way of truth and love has always won.
There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible,
but in the end they always fall — think of it. Always.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Follow Your Heart ~
Treasure Hunt Instructions
“The way is not in the sky.
The way is in the heart.”
~ Buddha
“As far, verily, as this world-space extends,
so far extends the space within the heart…”
~ Chandogya Upanishad 8.1.3
“Follow your heart – even if it contradicts my words”
“If there is love in your heart,
you don’t have to worry about rules.”
~ Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.”
“These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern.”
“Beautiful people do not just happen.”
~ Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, (Death: The Final Stage of Growth, 1975)
“It is in the darkness that one finds the light.”
~ Meister Eckhart
“Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow,
but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them.”
~ Leo Tolstoy
“Suffering is the way for Realization of God.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls;
the most massive characters are seared with scars.”
~ Khalil Gibran
“None can reach heaven who has not passed through hell.“
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri Book Two
Ron’s Introduction to “Follow Your Heart ~ Treasure Hunt Instructions”
Dear Friends,
The following brief but profound “Follow Your Heart” sutra-poem was first composed and mailed to my daughter Jessica for her twenty ninth birthday anniversary, on May 27, 1995. Soon after launching the SillySutras website, it was published online.
As fatherly advice, I had previously counseled both Jessica and her brother Joshua to:
‘Follow your heart;
don’t harm other beings;
and if possible try to help them.’
And Jessica already had courageously followed her heart in dropping out of Amherst to seek wisdom of the East, even after her distinguished Professor of Buddhist studies, Dr. Robert Thurman, had recommended that she stay and graduate before going to India.
But in 1995 I wanted to assuage Jessica’s concerns, cheer her up, and encourage her to keep following her inner guidance. So I intuitively composed and sent her this ‘follow your heart’ sutra-poem which I first titled: “Birthday Treasure Hunt Instructions” (Later, in publishing the poem’s timeless advice, I excised the word “birthday”)
I don’t remember my thoughts about the poem when I intuitively composed and sent it to Jessica. Maybe my fatherly advice was supposed to summarize one of my favorite Shakespeare passages, in which Polonius emphasizes to his embarking son Laertes:
“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any [person].”
~ William Shakespeare ~ Hamlet, Act I, Scene III
And maybe my poetic advice to Jessica, was mindfully intended to encompass the essence of the Golden Rule of reciprocal empathy that:
We do no harm and treat all beings
with the same dignity we wish for ourselves,
and that they wish for themselves.
Nor do I recall whether in 1995 I was already aware of the profound scriptural passages which I have cited above. But these sutra-poem verses can be understood as consistent with them.
Only much later did I discover Mark Twain’s humorously memorable observation that
“The two most important days in your life
are the day you are born
and the day you find out why.”
~ Mark Twain
Perhaps I was unknowingly sending Jessica a message on the anniversary of the ‘first most important day of her life’ about how to discover and celebrate the ‘second most important day of her life’.
In all events, I was convinced that by following our Sacred Heart we will be in harmony with all life everywhere.
So that as my beloved Guruji revealed:
“If there is love in your heart,
you don’t have to worry about rules.”
~ Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas
Initial Dedication of “Follow Your Heart”
Thus, this sutra-poem was first deeply dedicated to inspiring us
– no matter what we experience in our worldly lives –
to always heed and follow (for us and for all others)
the Eternal inner wisdom of our shared Sacred Heart:
Follow Your Heart ~ Treasure Hunt Instructions
Follow your heart
to find what you wish.Follow your heart
to seek what you miss.Follow your heart
and you shall know this:You are your heart,
you are your bliss,You are what you seek,
you are what you miss.So follow –
and find –Your HEART.
Ron’s audio explanation and recitation of “Follow Your Heart ~ Treasure Hunt Instructions”
2023 Epilogue to “Follow Your Heart ~ Treasure Hunt Instructions”
“Follow Your Heart” was initially inspired and composed when my daughter Jessica had recently returned from seven years in India and re-enrolled at Amherst College to complete the curriculum from which she had dropped out one semester short of graduation. Since she was much older than other undergraduates she was feeling out of place, uncertain and somewhat depressed.
Thereafter Jessica graduated Amherst; attained a Smith College masters degree; met and married a ‘best friend’ husband of 23 years, and birthed two beautiful daughters one of whom is a “special needs” child who has required Jessica’s continuing personal attention.
Today, May 27, 2023, 29 years after composing the foregoing “Follow Your Heart” sutra verses I am republishing them with added above key quotations from Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, world renowned scientist, teacher, author and pioneering authority on death and dying, and others, to encourage and inspire our realization that our relative reality “inner” and “outer” space/time duality experiences are obverse perspectives of the same Absolute non-duality REALITY.
That thereby we can fearlessly endure, inwardly evolve from, and ultimately transcend previously unforeseen intense sufferings, by always remembering that
“Beautiful people do not just happen.”
~ Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
“It is in the darkness that one finds the light.”
~ Meister Eckhart
“Suffering is the way for Realization of God.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls;
the most massive characters are seared with scars.”
~ Khalil Gibran
“None can reach heaven who has not passed through hell.“
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri Book Two
.
Rededication and Invocation of “Follow Your Heart”
Thus, “Follow Your Heart” is deeply rededicated
to inspiring our fearless endurance of previously
unknown and unforeseen intense sufferings
with the intention of helping us and all others
to follow the Eternal Wisdom of our shared Sacred HEART
– no matter what happens in our worldly lives.
Invocation
May we always fearlessly follow
Our shared Sacred HEART –
As Eternal Peace, Life, Light, and LOVE,
No matter what happens in our worldly lives.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
“Harmony”
~ Quotation Collection
“Love is the energizing elixir of the Universe,
the cause and effect of all Harmony.”
~ Rumi
“When there is harmony
between the mind, heart and resolution
then nothing is impossible.”
~ Rig Veda
“Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another . . And over all these virtues put on LOVE, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”
~ Colossians 3: 12-17
“Let us live in harmless harmony,
and stay in cosmic synchrony,
as we play in Nature’s symphony.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Ron’s introduction to “Harmony” ~ Quotation Collection
Dear Friends,
Over thirty years ago I began deeply reflecting about the crucial importance of living harmoniously with each other and Nature. Since then I’ve accumulated the following treasury of inspiring quotations about “Harmony”, which express ever enduring ideas and ideals of fundamental spiritual significance.
May these quotations encourage and inspire our harmonious thoughts, emotions and behaviors to help heal the world, beyond illusory perceived separation from Nature and each other.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Quotations and Sayings about “Harmony”
“Harmony is the secret principle of life.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“When there is harmony between the mind, heart and resolution
then nothing is impossible.”
~ Rig Veda
”Neither human wisdom nor divine inspiration
can confer upon man any greater blessing than
[to live a life of happiness and harmony here on earth].”
~ Plato
“Clothe yourselves with compassion,
kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
Bear with each other and forgive one another . .
And over all these virtues put on LOVE,
which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”
~ Colossians 3: 12-17
“Love is the energizing elixir of the Universe,
the cause and effect of all Harmony.”
~ Rumi
“(A)ll problems of existence are essentially problems of harmony.”
~ Sri Aurobindo
“The heart and mind can find peace and harmony
by contemplating the transcendental nature
of the true Self as supreme effulgent life.”
~ Patanjali
“Where the heart is full of kindness which seeks no injury to another,
either in act or thought or wish, this full love creates an atmosphere of harmony,
whose benign power touches with healing all who come within its influence.
Peace in the heart radiates peace to other hearts,
even more surely than contention breeds contention.”
~ Patanjali, Yoga Sutra
“Affirm divine calmness and peace,
and send out only thoughts of love and goodwill
if you want to live in peace and harmony.
Never get angry, for anger poisons your system.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“A harmonized mind produces harmony
in this world of seeming discord.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“Go forth in every direction –
for the happiness, the harmony, the welfare of the many.
Offer your heart, the seeds of understanding,
like a lamp overturned and re-lit, illuminating the darkness.”
~ Buddha
“The life ahead can only be glorious
if you learn to live in total harmony with the Lord.”
~ Shirdi Sai Baba
“Happiness is when what you think,
what you say,
and what you do are in harmony.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Virtue is harmony.”
~ Pythagoras
“God reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed.
Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“The sage is one with the world,
and lives in harmony with it.”
~ Lao Tzu
”One who lives in accordance with nature
does not go against the way of things,
but moves in harmony with the present moment.”
~ Lao Tzu
“He who lives in harmony with himself
lives in harmony with the universe.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
“The essence of saintliness is total acceptance of the present moment, harmony with things as they happen.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“If only the whole world could feel the power of harmony.”
~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
”The superior person is in Harmony,
but does not follow the crowd.
The lesser person follows the crowd,
but is not in Harmony.”
~ Confucius
“Love opens all doors,
no matter how tightly closed they may be,
no matter how rusty from lack of use.
Your work is to bring unity and harmony,
to open all those doors which have been closed for a long time.
Have patience and tolerance. Open your heart all the time.”
~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
“The life of this world is nothing but the harmony of opposites”
~ Rumi
“Where there is discord,
let us sow Harmony.”
~ Peace Prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi
”Without law or compulsion,
men would dwell in harmony.”
~ Lao Tzu
As soon as laws are necessary for men,
they are no longer fit for freedom.
~ Pythagoras
”Happy the man whose lot it is to know
The secrets of the earth.
He hastens not
To work his fellows hurt by unjust deeds,
But with rapt admiration contemplates
Immortal Nature’s ageless harmony,
And how and when the order came to be.”
~ Euripides
”To have a positive religion is not necessary.
To be in harmony with yourself and the universe is what counts,
and this is possible without positive and specific formulation in words.”
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“The unlike is joined together,
and from differences results the most beautiful harmony.”
~ Heraclitus
”Mutual respect and mutual listening
are the foundations of harmony within the family.”
~ Buddha
“Harmony can not thrive in a climate of
mistrust, cheating, bullying; mean-spirited competition.”
~ Dalai Lama
”Wherever I go meeting the public… spreading a message of human values … [and] harmony, is the most important thing.”
~ Dalai Lama
”If you want peace and harmony in the world,
you must have peace and harmony in your hearts and minds.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Happiness is not a matter of intensity
but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.”
~ Thomas Merton
”Harmony sinks deep into the recesses of the soul
and takes its strongest hold there,
bringing grace also to the body and mind as well.
Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the universe,
wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness,
and life to everything. It is the essence of order.”
~ Plato
”Music then is simply the result of the effects of Love on rhythm and harmony.”
~ Plato
”Music is an agreeable harmony for the honor of God
and the permissible delights of the soul.”
”Harmony is next to Godliness”
~ Johann Sebastian Bach
“If only the whole world could feel the power of harmony.”
~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
“Every element has a sound, an original sound from the order of God; all those sounds unite like the harmony from harps and zithers.”
~ Hildegard of Bingen
“A life in harmony with nature,
the love of truth and virtue,
will purge the eyes to understanding her text.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony,
and the deep power of joy,
we see into the life of things.”
~ William Wordsworth
“Life’s errors cry for the merciful beauty
that can modulate their isolation
into a harmony with the whole.”
~ Rabindranath Tagore
“The highest education is that
which does not merely give us information
but makes our life in harmony with all existence.”
~ Rabindranath Tagore
“Training the intellect does not result in intelligence.
Intelligence comes into being when one acts in perfect harmony,
both intellectually and emotionally.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
“As long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures
there can be no peace, no liberty, no harmony between people.
Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together.”
~ Isaac Bashevis Singer
”I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind…”
~ Albert Einstein
”The harmony of natural law reveals an Intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.”
~ Albert Einstein
“In art, and in the higher ranges of science,
there is a feeling of harmony which underlies all endeavor.
There is no true greatness in art or science
without that sense of harmony.”
~ Albert Einstein
“My feeling is religious insofar as I am imbued
with the consciousness of the insufficiency of the human mind
to understand more deeply the harmony of the Universe
which we try to formulate as “laws of nature”
~ Albert Einstein
”Today wherever you go, carry the intention of peace, love, and harmony in your heart.”
“Just as light brightens darkness, discovering inner fulfillment can eliminate any disorder or discomfort. This is truly the key to creating balance and harmony in everything you do.”
~ Deepak Chopra
”There is great freedom in simplicity of living,
and after I began to feel this,
I found harmony in my life between inner and outer well-being.
There is a great deal to be said about such harmony,
not only for an individual life but also for the life of a society.
It’s because as a world we have gotten ourselves so far out of harmony,
so way off on the material side, that when we discover something like nuclear energy we are still capable of putting it into a bomb and using it to kill people!
This is because our inner well-being lags so far behind our outer well-being.”
~ Peace Pilgrim
”Everyone has the perfect gift to give the world- and if each of us is freed up to give our unique gift, the world will be in total harmony.”
~ R. Buckminster Fuller
“Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity.”
~ Plato (The Republic)
“Out of clutter find simplicity.
From discord make harmony.
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
~ Albert Einstein
“The simplification of life is one of the steps to inner peace.
A persistent simplification will create an inner and outer well-being
that places harmony in one’s life.”
~ Peace Pilgrim
“Adversity draws men together and produces beauty and harmony in life’s relationships, just as the cold of winter produces ice-flowers on the window-panes, which vanish with the warmth.”
~ Soren Kierkegaard
“Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend;
you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left”
~ Aldo Leopold
“Live harmlessly in Harmony.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“How can there be harm in me,
when I’m in harmless Harmony?”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Let us live in harmless harmony,
and stay in cosmic synchrony,
as we play in Nature’s symphony.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Don’t disrupt and polarize,
but syncretize and harmonize.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Open Heart Therapy
“The way is not in the sky.
The way is in the heart.”
~ Buddha
“You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens.”
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
~ Rumi
“Your pain is the medicine by which the
physician within heals thyself.”
“Even as the stone of the fruit must break,
that its heart may stand in the sun,
so must you know pain.”
~ Kahlil Gibran
“We must feel our heart
to heal our heart.
Feeling hastens healing.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“The best and most beautiful things in the world
cannot be seen or even touched –
they must be felt with the heart.”
~ Helen Keller
“There is a light that shines beyond all things on Earth, …
beyond the highest, the very highest heavens.
This is the light that shines in your Heart.”
~ Chandogya Upanishad 3.13.7
“As far, verily, as this world-space extends,
so far extends the space within the heart…”
~ Chandogya Upanishad 8.1.3
“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”
~ King Solomon – Proverbs 23:7
“The release of atom power ..changed everything
except our way of thinking…
the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind.”
~ Albert Einstein
“If there is love in your heart,
you don’t have to worry about rules.”
~ Sri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas
Open Heart Therapy
Introduction to “Open Heart Therapy”
Dear Friends,
The following sutra-poem was inspired by my realization that a broken heart (from a very painful divorce), had opened my spiritual heart to previously suppressed deep devotional feelings and frequent tears; that a broken heart had triggered an awakened evolutionary healing process – a ‘‘breakdown-breakthrough” from decades of ego-mind afflictions.
Since long-ago composing “Open Heart Therapy”, I’ve become a “faith-based optimist”. Hence, following the sutra-poem’s words and recitation below, I optimistically explain with comments and quotes, why I now foresee that a “critical mass” of awakened people with opened spiritual hearts will soon actualize an elevated a new earth-age – an historically unprecedented era transcending current worldwide human insanity which catastrophically threatens all life on our precious planet.
These sutra verses and writings are deeply dedicated to optimistically inspiring our energetically uplifted transcendence of ego-mind’s evolutionary impediments, and so to hastening our spiritual transformation.
May they thereby encourage us to enjoy health and freedom, beyond fearful ego-mind sufferings.
Ron Rattner
Open Heart Therapy
We must feel our heart
to heal our heart.
Feeling hastens healing.
A closed heart is a cold heart.
An open heart is a warm heart –
a compassionate heart.
As our heart ever opens,
its capacity for compassion ever grows.
And as its boundaries expand,
so do its possibilities ever expand.
An opened heart
is an illumined heart;
a limitless, boundless heart;
a loving heart.
Ron’s audio recitation of “Open Heart Therapy”
Ron’s Reflections on “Open Heart Therapy”
for Awakening to an Elevated New Age.
Dear Friends,
We live in an age of mental malaise. Delusional human behaviors are threatening all Earth life as we have known it. For our peaceful survival, we must transcend these insane behaviors and resolve the problems they have caused.
As Albert Einstein aptly observed:
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” …
“The release of atom power ..changed everything except our way of thinking … the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind.”
Thus for our peaceful survival on planet Earth, the critical problems now confronting humanity must be transcended – societally and individually – through spiritually elevated heartfelt awareness.
According to His Holiness the Dalai Lama,
“Ultimately, the decision to save the environment must come from the human heart. [From] a genuine sense of universal responsibility that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.”
Also the Dalai Lama says that, for such a heart level of universal planetary responsibility, we need ethics based on spirituality “beyond religion” – because religion alone “is no longer adequate”.
How can this happen?
With ever expanding empathy for all life everywhere we must follow ‘the Golden Rule’. For millennia wisdom teachers from virtually all enduring ethical, religious, and spiritual traditions have proposed a simple ethical rule which if conscientiously followed will change the world.
Its essence is that we do no harm; that we treat all sentient beings with the same dignity that we wish for ourselves and that they wish for themselves.
Though easy to understand, this Golden Rule of reciprocal empathy can not easily be followed until we awaken within – beyond ego-mind’s “optical illusion” of separateness – to indivisible spiritual Wholeness with all beings and all life everywhere.
Then as Einstein suggests we must gradually
“widen our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
Eventually, we won’t even need the Golden rule. As my beloved Guruji Shri Dhyanyogi revealed:
“If there is love in your heart,
you don’t have to worry about rules.”
Ultimately, by following our sacred heart we’ll be in harmony with all life everywhere.
Conclusion and Dedication
As a “faith-based optimist”, I now foresee that a “critical mass” of awakened people with opened spiritual hearts will soon actualize an elevated new earth-age – an historically unprecedented era transcending current worldwide human insanity which catastrophically threatens all life on our precious planet.
Thus today’s sutra verses and writings are optimistically dedicated to inspiring our energetically uplifted transcendence of ego-mind’s evolutionary impediments to an egalitarian new age, and so to hasten our spiritual transformation beyond fearful suffering to health and spiritual freedom.
Invocation
With opened and awakened hearts,
may we envision and actualize an egalitarian new age,
wherein everyone everywhere treats all beings and all life
with the same dignity that they wish for themselves –
with a “genuine sense of universal responsibility
that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.”
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Birds Have Feelings*
But ask the animals, and they will teach you,
or the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
or speak to the earth, and it will teach you,
or let the fish of the sea inform you.
Which of all these does not know
that the hand of the LORD has done this?
~ Job 12:7-9
In this world of relativity, we are all relatives.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Birds Have Feelings*
Feelings are not exclusive to humans; all sentient creatures have conscious feelings.
Below … a barn swallow’s female mate is injured and the condition is soon fatal. She was hit by a car as she swooped low across the road.
Here he brought her food and attended to her with love and compassion.
He brought her food again but was shocked to find her dead.
He tried to move her….a rarely-seen effort for swallows!
Aware that his sweetheart is dead and will never come back to him again,
he cries with adoring love.
Finally aware that she would never return to him,
he
stood beside her body with sadness and sorrow.
Supposedly, millions of people worldwide wept on watching these photos.
It is said that the photographer sold these pictures for a nominal fee to the most famous French newspaper; that on the day it published them, all its copies were sold out, with comments like these:
And many people think animals don’t have a brain or feelings???
You have just witnessed Love and Sorrow felt by God’s creatures.
The Creator knows when a sparrow falls.
Live simply, love generously, care deeply and speak kindly.
Grace is the Creator reaching down.
Faith is humanity reaching back.
“And what is more important than knowledge?” asks the mind.
“Caring and seeing with the heart” answers the soul.
*Footnote – Unknown author; edited and augmented by Ron Rattner
Ron’s Comments on How Birds Remind Us to
Live The ‘Golden Rule’ of Reciprocal Empathy
Dear Friends,
Feelings are not exclusive to humans; all sentient creatures have conscious feelings.
After midlife I gradually realized that all lifeforms, even plants and apparent non-living inanimate objects share as their deepest essence ONE universal consciousness; that all space-time forms and phenomena are manifestations of the same cosmic consciousness; and, that this entire reality is a projected holographic/fractal play of consciousness.
However, in this age of mental malaise most people have lost conscious awareness of our deep oneness with all life everywhere. Hence they ignorantly fail to follow the “golden rule” of reciprocal empathy for other creatures and people. And they treat others as they would not want to be treated themselves.
Moreover, there are many powerful purported leaders who are ruling the world without apparent empathy for the unsustainable devastation and immense suffering they cause or condone. At the root of much world suffering is the US empire which is hypocritically and psychopathically ruled top-down by a totalitarian transnational military industrial complex of obscenely rich billionaires and their supporting organizations.
Today as a powerful visual reminder of our deep connection with all other lifeforms, I have edited and reposted Birds Have Feelings, an anonymous essay with above photos, which I discovered online years ago.
For sustainable survival of earth-life as we’ve known it, humans – like birds – must have open-hearted empathy for the death, deprivation and suffering of all life everywhere.
This posting about birds is deeply dedicated to inspiring and reminding us that to avert imminent catastrophe we must do no harm and live the golden rule of empathetic concern for all life our precious planet.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Go For the Gold:
The Golden Rule For a Golden Age
“Today, … any religion-based answer to the problem of our neglect of inner values can never be universal,
and so will be inadequate.”
“The time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.”
~ Dalai Lama
“What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor:
that is the whole of the Torah;
all the rest of it is commentary.”
~ Rabbi Hillel, Talmud, Shabbat, 31a – Judaism
“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you;
for this is the law and the prophets.”
~ Matthew 7:12 – Christianity
“Hurt not others in ways you yourself would find hurtful.”
~ Udana-Varga, 5:18 – Buddhism
“This is the sum of duty: do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you.”
~ The Mahabharata, 5:1517 – Hinduism
“Not one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.”
~ Fortieth Hadith of an-Nawawi,13 – Islam
“Do not unto others what you do not want them to do to you.”
~ Analects 15:13 – Confucianism
“All things are our relatives;
what we do to everything, we do to ourselves.
All is really One.”
~ Black Elk – Native American Spirituality
“Do what you will, so long as it harms none.”
~ Wiccan Rede – Neo-paganism
“Don’t do things you wouldn’t want to have done to you.”
~ British Humanist Society – Humanism
“Great Spirit, grant that I may not criticize my neighbor until I have walked a mile in his moccasins.”
~ Native American prayer
“It’s not just religious people who believe in the Golden Rule.
This is the source of all morality, this imaginative act of empathy – putting yourself in the place of another.”
~ Karen Armstrong
“I will be as careful for you as I should be for myself in the same need.”
~ Homer, The Odyssey – Ancient Greece – 700 BC
“A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.”
“Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind.”
~ Albert Schweitzer
Awakening to a Golden Age.
Dear Friends,
We live in an age of mental malaise. Delusional human behaviors are causing life-threatening environmental, international and inter-personal crises and conflicts. For our peaceful survival on mother Earth, we must transcend these insane behaviors and resolve the problems they have caused.
As Albert Einstein aptly observed: “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” So our survival depends on elevating human consciousness, societally and individually.
According to the Dalai Lama,
“Ultimately, the decision to save the environment must come from the human heart. [From] a genuine sense of universal responsibility that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.” . . . “Today, … any religion-based answer to the problem of our neglect of inner values can never be universal, and so will be inadequate.” . . “The time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.”
Thus for humanity’s peaceful survival on our beautiful blue planet, the critical problems now confronting us must be resolved through love and compassion, based on universal human ethics that are “beyond religion” – because religion alone “is no longer adequate”.
How can this happen?
With ever expanding empathy for all life everywhere we must follow ‘the Golden Rule’. For millennia wisdom teachers from virtually all enduring ethical, religious, and spiritual traditions have proposed a simple ethical rule which if consciously and conscientiously followed can change the world.
Its essence is that we do no harm; that we treat all beings with the same dignity that we wish for ourselves and that they wish for themselves.
Though easy to understand, this Golden Rule of reciprocal empathy can not easily be followed until we awaken within – beyond our “optical delusion” of separateness – to our collective connection with all beings and all life everywhere. Then as Einstein suggests we can gradually “widen our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
Eventually, we won’t even need the Golden rule. As my beloved Guruji Shri Dhyanyogi revealed:
“If there is love in your heart,
you don’t have to worry about rules.”
Ultimately, by following our sacred heart we will be in harmony with all life everywhere.
“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet
So with awakened hearts let us actualize a Golden Age wherein everyone everywhere treats all beings and all life with the same dignity that they wish for themselves – with an empathetic “genuine sense of universal responsibility that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.”
And so shall it be!
Beautiful Golden Rule Video.
Ron’s 11:11 Commentary on Awakening to a Golden Age.
Dear Friends,
For many people these are dark and divisive “new normal” times unprecedented in their lives. But current painful world suffering and turmoil can be seen as darkness before an inevitable dawn; as marking a rare turning point in human history – an immense evolutionary opportunity for disintegration of outdated world political, economic and ecological paradigms that have become painfully and unsustainably anachronous, to make way for a new era of human harmony and conscious connection with each other and with Nature.
From seeing everyone and everything as discrete and separated by apparently immutable boundaries, we are rapidly realizing that everyone/everything is connected by a common Essence – ever-changing energy in a matrix of immutable awareness. Thus, we are evolving from a Newtonian “reality” of polarized duality to a quantum “reality” of holistic connectedness; from either this or that, to this and that are ONE.
With this realization, we can best address current challenges, and transcend pervasively polarizing negative emotions – like fear and anger – with feelings, insights and actions arising from loving-kindness and compassion for all life everywhere.
With benevolent and focused intentions, more and more we can open our hearts to innate human empathy, and thereby realize our collective connection with and deep concern for all life everywhere – even including perceived adversaries or enemies.
With heartfelt concern for all Earth-life, we must do no harm, and treat all beings with the same dignity we wish for ourselves, and that they wish for themselves.
May we collectively join in heartfelt harmony with this crucial ‘golden rule’ ethical principle.
Whereupon with intentions, and actions arising from reciprocal empathy for all life everywhere, may all humankind truly transcend and cooperatively resolve our critical ecologic, economic, international and interpersonal problems, for an enlightened and elevated new age that will bless all life on our precious planet.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Quotations About Religion
“If there is love in your heart,
you don’t have to worry about rules.”
~ Sri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas
Sri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas
Introduction
Throughout human history, countless beings have died and suffered in the name of religion, which is often asserted to hypocritically justify immoral partisan political or economic desires.
Because of advanced technologies, wars and other violent behaviors which for centuries have caused immense misery, now threaten all planetary life as we have known it. So – at long last – humans urgently need to abandon wars and warlike behaviors, including those waged in the name of religion.
The following quotations and comments about religion, are deeply dedicated to helping us achieve that urgent necessity.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Quotations About Religion
“My religion is very simple.
My religion is kindness.”
~ Dalai Lama
“Today, … any religion-based answer to the problem of our neglect of inner values can never be universal, and so will be inadequate.”
“The time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.”
~ Dalai Lama
“This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.”
~ Dalai Lama
“This is a time for us to remember that in the name of religion more people have died than in all the wars and natural calamities put together. Now more than ever we must understand that the purpose of religion is not to separate us.
True faiths don’t preach hatred and killing, nor did any of the prophets.
It is the people who interpret the scriptures who create the divisions.
Division comes if we put our ego into the teachings of these religions.
Let us strive to be free of that kind of egoism”
~ Swami Satchidananda
“People often ask me, “What religion are you?
You talk about the Bible, Koran, Torah. Are you a Hindu?”
I say, I am not a Catholic, a Buddhist, or a Hindu, but an Undo.
My religion is Undoism. We have done enough damage (with religious dogma). We have to stop doing any more and simply undo the damage we have already done.”
~ Swami Satchidananda – Beyond Words
“The great religions are the ships,
Poets the life boats.
Every sane person I know has jumped overboard.”
~ Hafiz
“I consider myself a Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, and Confucian.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi or Zen. Not any religion, or cultural system. I am not from the East or the West, nor out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all. I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or the next, did not descend from Adam and Eve or any origin story. My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless. Neither body nor soul. I belong to the beloved have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know, First, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human.”
~ Rumi, ‘Only Breath’
“I have learned so much from God
That I can no longer call myself
a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew.”
~ Hafiz
“There is one Cosmic Essence, all-pervading, all-knowing, all-powerful.
This nameless formless essence can be approached by any name, any form, any symbol that suites the taste of the individual.
Follow your religion, but try to understand the real purpose behind all of the rituals and traditions, and experience that Oneness.”
~ Swami Satchidananda
“Let us accept all the different paths as different rivers running toward the same ocean.”
~ Swami Satchidananda
“Your daily life is your temple and your religion.”
~ Khalil Gibran – “The Prophet”
“True religion is real living;
living with all one’s soul,
with all one’s goodness and righteousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend a personal God and avoid dogmas and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity. ”
~ Albert Einstein
“A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in.
No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow.
They know it is going to rise tomorrow.
When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it’s always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.”
~ Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
“Orthodoxy means not thinking — not needing to think.
Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”
~ George Orwell, 1984
“Irrevocable commitment to any one religion is not only intellectual suicide;
it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world.
Faith is, above all, open-ness—an act of trust in the unknown.”
~ Alan Watts
“Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
“The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
“Religion is the opium of the masses.”
~ Karl Marx
“Religion is confining and imprisoning and toxic
because it is based on ideology and dogma.
But spirituality is redeeming and universal.”
~ Deepak Chopra
“In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.”
~ Mark Twain – Autobiography, 1959
At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols.”
~ Aldous Huxley
“There is only one God,
the same God regardless of the labels applied by religion. …
There is only one religion, the religion of Love;
There is only one language, the language of the Heart;
There is only one caste, the caste of Humanity”
~ Sathya Sai Baba
“Wherever I look, I see men quarrelling in the name of religion —
Hindus, Mohammendans, Brahmos, Vaishnavas, and the rest.
But they never reflect that He who is called Krishna is also called Siva, and bears the name of the Primal Energy, Jesus, and Allah as well — the same Rama with a thousand names.
A lake has several ghats. At one the Hindus take water in pitchers and call it ‘jal’; at another the Mussalmans take water in leather bags and call it ‘pani’. At a third the Christians call it ‘water’. Can we imagine that it is not ‘jal’, but only ‘pani’ or ‘water’? How ridiculous! The substance is One under different names, and everyone is seeking the same substance; only climate, temperament, and name create differences.
Let each man follow his own path. If he sincerely and ardently wishes to know God, peace be unto him! He will surely realize Him.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
“Among all my patients in the second half of life …
there has not been one whose problem in the last resort
was not that of finding a religious outlook on life.”
~ Carl Jung
Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one
~ John Lennon, “Imagine”
Ron’s comments on urgent necessity of nonviolent reciprocal empathy,
beyond religion-based behaviors
Dear Friends,
The foregoing quotations about religion have been posted to help us avert worldwide catastrophe from false religious interpretations of prophets’ teachings about peace and unity.
Religious prophets have always preached against killing and violence. And every enduring religious, spiritual or ethical tradition has endorsed the “golden rule” of reciprocal empathy and kindness.
For example,
“What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor: that is the whole of the Torah; all the rest of it is commentary.” ~ Rabbi Hillel – Judaism
“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.”
~ Matthew 7:12 – Christianity
“Hurt not others in ways you yourself would find hurtful.”
~ Udana-Varga, 5:18 – Buddhism
“This is the sum of duty: do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you.”
~ The Mahabharata, 5:1517 – Hinduism
“Not one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.”
~ Fortieth Hadith of an-Nawawi,13 – Islam
Yet, countless people have died and suffered throughout human history in the name of religion, which is often cited to hypocritically justify immoral partisan political or economic desires. Because of advanced technologies, wars and other violent behaviors which for centuries have caused immense miseries, now threaten all planetary life as we have known it. So – at long last – humans urgently need to abandon wars and warlike behaviors.
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought,
but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
~ Albert Einstein
Humanity can no longer survive, without practicing nonviolent universal ethical behaviors which transcend divisive religious beliefs cited to justify immorally violent activities.
“Today, … any religion-based answer to the problem of our neglect of inner values can never be universal, and so will be inadequate.”
“The time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.”
~ Dalai Lama
“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
“The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.”
~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them humanity cannot survive.”
~ Dalai Lama
To end wars and warlike behaviors, it is imperative that we honor our sacred heart’s inner wisdom over divisive religious, political or economic beliefs, so as to transcend problems of violence created from lower ego levels of human consciousness.
With opened hearts let us stop treating others as we don’t wish to be treated ourselves,
by practicing the ‘do no harm’ “golden rule” of reciprocal empathy.
May we begin treating all sentient beings with kindness, compassion and empathy –
with the same dignity that they wish for themselves.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Reflections on Religious Beliefs
“Today, … any religion-based answer to the problem of our neglect of inner values can never be universal,
and so will be inadequate.” . . .
“[T]he time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.”
~ Dalai Lama
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them humanity cannot survive.”
~ Dalai Lama
“I consider myself a Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, and Confucian.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“I have learned so much from God
That I can no longer call myself
a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew”
~ Hafiz
“Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen. Not any religion, or cultural system. I am not from the East or the West, nor out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all.
I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or the next, did not descend from Adam and Eve or any origin story.
My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless. Neither body nor soul. I belong to the Beloved have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know,
First, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human.”
~ Rumi, ‘Only Breath’
“Irrevocable commitment to any one religion is not only intellectual suicide; it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world.”
~ Alan Watts
“The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
“We are shackled by illusory bonds of belief.
Freedom is beyond belief.
So, we seek relief from belief.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Follow dharma, not dogma.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Reflections on Religious Beliefs
Q. What is religion?
A. “Religion” is a word with many meanings.
Here we define it as “any belief system about Divinity or immortality often including rules, rituals, codes of ethics, and philosophies of life.”
Q. Why do we have religions?
A. There is a subtle Cosmic law of ‘supply and demand.’ Religions have arisen in response to our perennial quest for lasting peace and happiness, and our desire to transcend inevitable earthly psychological sufferings.
Knowingly or unknowingly, everyone seeks Happiness, Wholeness, and Love. Consciously or subliminally, we intuit and long for a state of Being which transcends inevitable Earthly cares and suffering. Knowingly or unknowingly we seek timeless Truth.
Religious belief is a form of attempted life guidance, and psychological self-protection from fear of inevitable physical death and uncertain life experience before death. Though many find transient consolation in accepting religious beliefs about divinity and immortality, such beliefs can’t permanently provide such protection. We can’t find freedom from fear of death and from life’s uncertainties through theories, thoughts or beliefs, but only through direct experiential Knowledge.
Thus the Buddha, who legendarily realized such freedom while meditating beneath a Banyan tree, counseled:
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.
Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.
Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.
But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
~ Buddha
When twentieth century Indian sage, J. Krishnamurti, was asked
“Is belief in God necessary or helpful?” he said:
“[B]elief in any form is a hindrance. A man who believes in God can never find God. If you are open to reality, there can be no belief in reality. If you are open to the unknown, there can be no belief in it. … belief is a form of self-protection…” …
“When the mind is completely empty – only then is it capable of receiving the unknown.” …… “Only when the mind is wholly silent, completely inactive, not projecting, when it is not seeking and is utterly still – only then that which is eternal and timeless comes into being.”
Similarly the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, a sacred Hindu text, state:
“Yoga is the cessation of mind.”
“The witness is Self, pure awareness, which,
though boundless and unchanging,
appears to perceive creation through the construct of mind.”
“The [mistaken] identification of pure awareness with the mind and its creations
causes the apprehension of both an objective world and a perceiver of it.”
“When the mind withdraws attention from sense experience,
the senses receive no impressions from sense objects,
and awareness rests in its essential nature.”
“When he is not in the state of yoga, man remains [mistakenly] identified with the thought-waves in the mind.”
~ Patanjali – Yoga Sutras
Q. Why is a silent mind important?
A. Through thought we self identify as entities separate from the Whole – as separate perceivers of a supposedly objective world. But this is an ego illusion. So, attempted psychological self-preservation through perpetuation of an illusionary self-image is futile. What never was can never be preserved. Thus, religious beliefs that seek psychological self protection from identification with an illusion of separateness from Self are ultimately futile.
The object of all spiritual practice is to transcend such illusionary ego identity. Such transcendence happens only when thought ceases and the universal intelligence which has been mistakenly regarded as a separate experiencer of sensations and emotions, and a separate performer of actions, exists by itself and as itself, and is not mentally divided.
Q. What about instinctive physical acts of self-protection, as distinguished from religious beliefs aimed at psychological self-preservation?
A. According to J.Krishnamurti:
“Physical self-protection is sane, normal and healthy but every other form of self-protection, inwardly, is resistance and it always gathers, builds up strength which is fear.”
Q. Are religious beliefs important?
A. Our ethical behaviors – not our religious beliefs – are most important.
As the Dalai Lama reportedly has said:
“There is no religion higher than the Truth. … What really is important is our behavior with peers, family, work, community, and in the world. …. Whether or not we follow a religion, what is important is that we become more compassionate, more sensible, more detached, more loving, more humanitarian, more responsible, more ethical.” https://sillysutras.com/your-religion-is-not-important/
So grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate:
“[T]he reality of the world today is that grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate.
This is why I believe the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.”
~ H.H. the Dalai Lama – Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World
Ron’s Comments on Urgently Needed Ethical Behaviors
Beyond Religious Beliefs
Dear Friends,
Without universal ethical behavior beyond conflicting religious beliefs, humanity cannot survive.
As explained in the foregoing essay, throughout human history, people have adopted or accepted “religious” beliefs, practices and institutions, in exploring the mystery and meaning of life and existence. About 84% of the world’s population is affiliated with Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism or with some form of folk religion. Also there are now an estimated 10,000 distinct religions worldwide.
Paradoxically, some leaders and devotees of religions organized to teach universal “Truth” realized by Great Beings have perpetuated and acted on mistaken egoic ideas of separateness, which the sages transcended. Thus, throughout human history countless people and other precious life forms – all manifestations of that same Universal “Truth” – have been victims of demonic wars, crusades, inquisitions, persecutions, and ‘terrorism’ initiated and perpetrated in the name of “true” religion or God.
Although religious beliefs and practices have also inspired immeasurable good, advances in technological and scientific knowledge now reveal that Humankind urgently need to transcend such behaviors which have spawned immense misery and even threaten all Earth life as we have known it.
But how can this happen?
Inspired by the wisdom of Dr. Seuss that “sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple,” I have long reflected on on this question, seeking simple answers to the immensely complicated crises confronting us.
Perhaps one of the simplest but most powerful answers I’ve found is:
“There is only one God,
the same God regardless of the labels applied by religion. …
There is only one religion, the religion of Love;
There is only one language, the language of the Heart;
There is only one caste, the caste of Humanity”
~ Sathya Sai Baba
But most people are not yet sufficiently evolved to understand and act in accordance with that profound observation.
So I was delighted when His Holiness the Dalai Lama published an important self-help book – “Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World” – which H.H. introduced with this important insight:
“[T]he reality of the world today is that grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate.
This is why I believe the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.”
~ H.H. the Dalai Lama – Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World (2011)
And I have been deeply inspired and encouraged by similar sentiments addressed to all Humankind by Pope Francis, e.g.:
“When one realizes that life, even in the middle of so many contradictions, is a gift, that love is the source and the meaning of life, how can they withhold their urge to do good to another fellow being?”
“[W]e all need each other, none of us is an island, an autonomous and independent “I,” separated from the other . . . .we can only build the future by standing together, including everyone”. . . .
“[E]verything is connected, and we need to restore our connections to a healthy state.”
“We have so much to do, and we must do it together.”
~ Pope Francis – 2017 TED Talk
And so we must realize that
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them humanity cannot survive.”
~ Dalai Lama
Invocation
With silenced minds and ever opened hearts
may we practice the “golden rule” of reciprocal empathy;
do no harm, and compassionately see and treat all sentient beings
as spiritual siblings.
May everyone everywhere treat all beings and all Life
with the same dignity that they wish for themselves.
And so shall it be.
Ron Rattner
